Sfinx software tree - mail aliases
The format of the mail aliases has recently (1996) been altered;
previously, aliases
were maintained in the format of the Elm mail program,
making them unavailable to people using other mailers.
Now, the aliases database is maintained on system level (master copy is
/strw0/nis-master/aliases), and they are not only available from
any mail program (as long as it uses sendmail as its mail
transport agent), but they are also available for incoming -mail (see below).
Format of the aliases
If you know someone's username, you can reach her or him at that as local
e-mail address. Alternatively, you can use Firstname.Lastname.
In case of last names with prefixes (e.g. "van de"), multiple formats are
included, e.g. Paul.van.der.Werf, Paul.vd.Werf,
Paul.vanderWerf (Note that capitalization is not essential).
When unambiguous, a person's last name and/or first name is also included
as an alias, but these may change, if necessary (e.g. when another person
with the same first or last name comes to the observatory), so don't
count on it.
Incoming mail
The same alaises now also work for incoming e-mail, if you append
@strw.leidenuniv.nl, so people can now send
their messages to e.g. David.Jansen@strw.leidenuniv.nl.
Utilities
To see if an alias is defined, use checkaddress or
checkalias. This will print out the expansion of the alias
and test if mail is deliverable at that address (although this test isn't
always conclusive).
checkaddress without an alias gives a list of all the
system-wide aliases.
To check your own elm aliases, use elmalias.
Domains and hosts
In the old days (< 1994) it was necessary to address mail to
user@machine.strw.leidenuniv.nl or
user@subcluster.strw.leidenuniv.nl.
This is not necessary, and in fact even discouraged, since we cannot guarantee
completely that all machines will handle the aliases in exactly the same way.
Please use user@strw.leidenuniv.nl, and let people know
that that is your address. It's shorter, and people don't have to remember
the name of the dutch river that happens to be on your desk.
The other old names directly under the university domain are no longer valid
(strwchem.leidenuniv.nl and cosmos.leidenuniv.nl).
David.Jansen@strw.leidenuniv.nl
Last modified: Wed Jan 15 11:14:11 MET 1997